Philosophies of the Religious Right: Part One

The majority of churches, religious institutions and prominent religious individuals, though deluded IMHO, are for the most part, most of the time, middle-of-the-road and live-and-let-live. But as any probability statistician can relate to, there will be minorities on either side of that road. One side of that religious road, the Right side, are not only in your face but hold opinions (usually stated as facts) and philosophies that are anything but the normal mainstream. In fact they are extreme.

During the recent (2012) American election campaign, several Republican (GOP)/Tea Party candidates got some (probably) unwanted publicity by making out-of-the-box and extreme comments with Religious Right Wing overtones on topics such as church and state; legitimate rape; rape and God’s plan; same-sex marriage; the literal creation-in-six-days Bible, and so on. Not that extreme out-of-the-box worldviews were confined to politicians and wannabe politicians. There are a whole potful of organisations and individuals from shock-jock media personalities, news commentators, televangelists, and lots more who routinely come out with outrageous foot-in-mouth and extreme Right Wing points of view, nearly always with a Christian religious slant. I learned a lot about the extreme Right Wing by following the US election campaign unfolding. Here’s my summation based on what exposure I had over those many, many, many endless months while the campaign coverage was in full swing.

The Religious Right aren’t going to pay any attention to this, but no matter, here goes.

What are the issues the extreme Religious Right are frothing at the mouth about and is it cosmically significant?

The Literal Bible:

Their Point of View: Since the Bible is the infallible God’s Holy Word, all Biblical Books, Chapters and Verses; all versions of the Bible; all translations of the Bible; were under His Almighty editorship, and therefore, how can you not take the Bible literally. If God says that life, the universe and everything were created in six days, then that’s absolute fact. If God says that the first man was made from dust and the first woman from that man’s rib, you’d better believe it. If Genesis relates that Lot’s wife was turned into a pillar of salt, it was so (and if the Bible says it was so, it was so and you could sprinkle her onto your fish-and-chips). If the Bible acknowledges the existence of unicorns, then unicorns exist (or existed). And so on and so forth from Genesis to Revelation.

My Point of View: All you need to do is find one logical contradiction, one fallacy, one bit that goes so against the grain; that being the case, the entire Biblical house of cards has to come tumbling down. Let’s just say that entire books have been written pointing out in exquisite detail Biblical contradictions, fallacies, and untruths that only Blind Freddy with an absolutely closed mind (my mind is made up, don’t confuse me with facts) can fail to acknowledge what to everyone else is the bleeding obvious. If, and that’s a big if, God exists, He is not infallible, His memory is faulty, or He didn’t bother to oversee the master editing of His Holy Word. If He couldn’t or wouldn’t ensure Biblical accuracy, well what does that tell you about the bona fides of the Almighty?

Evolution

Their Point of View: Since God created life, the universe and everything in roughly the year 4004 BCE, and since God created all life forms in the form to which we see them today, then the entire concept of natural selection and biological evolution is nonsense. There’s not enough time for evolution to have happened. There is no need to evolve a giraffe since God created the giraffe. Since God created Homo sapiens there is no need to postulate that human beings evolved from apes. Evolution is all absolute rubbish.

My Point of View: I fail to see what is so hard for anyone to comprehend here. Evolutionary theory should be obvious to even blind Freddy (a synonym for the Religious Right). The logic is ironclad. Parents (of any species) give rise to offspring that are NOT identical to themselves. That in itself is evolution – a change. Some of those offspring may be better adapted to survive long enough to reproduce more offspring in turn vis-à-vis some of their brothers and sisters. Those ever so slightly better able to reproduce will pass on more likely as not some of those positive features to more offspring than their less adapted siblings. Over time, those better adapted leave behind more descendants than those less well adapted who leave behind fewer offspring. That sort of feedback mechanism ensures evolution, which is just change over time. Evolutionary theory is however backed up by physical evidence; fossil evidence for starters, not to mention firsthand eyeball observations of evolutionary change happening in the here and now.

Intelligent Design

Their Point of View: Life, the universe and everything is so perfectly constructed and interrelated like some fitted together zillion piece jigsaw puzzle that only a Supreme Deity could have pulled it off and put it together. A clock requires a clockmaker; or as Fred Hoyle put it, a tornado doesn’t rip through a junkyard and assembles a Boeing 747. 

My Point of View: The fallacy here is the assumption that there was total chaos (an unassembled jigsaw puzzle; clock parts lying on a bench; a junkyard that had all the bits and pieces necessary for a Boeing 747) and then a snap of the intelligent design fingers and low and behold a zillion piece jigsaw puzzle is assembled; a clock starts ticking away; a Boeing 747 is all fuelled up and ready for takeoff. Forgotten in this equation is is time, and lots of it and probability theory. If you sit down at the poker table, you’re not likely to be dealt a Royal Flush, but by manipulation of what you throw away and what you gain, you increase the odds of ending up with one. That’s evolution, from chaos to finished product. Then too, over the course of a lifetime and thousands of games and hundreds of thousands of hands, the odds of you getting dealt a Royal Flush right off the bat increase. It will probably happen, if not to you then to someone else, like your opponent. Time and probability help turn chaos into complexity. There’s a long, long, long chain of events twixt chaos and a Boeing 747, and a lot of time required, like 13.7 billion years worth. That’s hardly a quick snap of the intelligent design fingers. In any case, any scientist can easily point out that that zillion piece jigsaw puzzle not only has a few pieces missing but some pieces haven’t been assembled intelligently at all. If a perfect God created a perfect human being (intelligent design), how come many of us acquire back troubles? 

Homosexuality

Their Point of View: Same-sex relations of a sexual nature are unnatural and God doesn’t like it (probably because you can’t do your ‘be fruitful and multiple’ thingy bit).

My Point of View: My position is that what two (or more) consenting adults do behind closed doors is none of my business. It has no bearing on my life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. What two married adults, same sex or opposite sexes, do behind closed doors is none of my business. Ditto that life, liberty and happiness bit. The only issue I haven’t quite come to terms with is whether same-sex couples should raise children. In theory it shouldn’t matter; in actual practice, given the realities of human culture and society and worldviews, all else being equal, it might be better if children weren’t raised in a same-sex atmosphere, but I’m still fence-sitting on that.

Equality in Marriage

Their Point of View: Marriage is between one man and one woman – full stop. All else is an abomination in the eyes of God.

My Point of View: If two men, or two women, wish to marry, it’s no skin off my back. Different strokes for different folks, that’s my motto.

Contraception

Their Point of View: Contraception/Birth Control is an attempt to thwart God’s ‘be fruitful and multiply’ commandment and therefore it is a no-no.

My Point of View: Some couples don’t want kids (shock, horror, blasphemy). Some couples cannot afford kids. Some couples have jobs and lifestyles not suited to parenthood or raising a family. Which is the better option, no conception in the first place and an unwanted child in poverty that’s ignored, or conception in the first place with no grief on down the line? Besides, if you’re not bringing a new life into the world, at least you’re not condemning that non-life to an eventual death.

Abortion

Their Point of View: A human life starts at the moment of conception. Therefore, abortion, a post-conception act, must be murder, which God forbids (though God kills Himself, but that’s another topic).

My Point of View: Until such time as a foetus has a reasonable chance of surviving outside of the womb, the foetus is part of the anatomy of the mother. The mother has the right to decide about what happens to her own anatomy. Abortion is okay. Once that foetus crosses the threshold, then, unless the life of the women is endangered, no abortion. If the pregnancy isn’t by consent, say via rape, inside or outside of marriage; same distinction. But since the rape induced pregnancy will be known about quite some time before the foetus can survive outside of the womb, the mother can make an informed decision to abort or not abort as she sees fit. 

To be continued…

God’s Intelligent Design? Part Two

One alleged proof of an Almighty deity is that life, the Universe and everything (LUE) is apparently designed in an intelligent, not in a random way. Part of that life is of course human beings, like you. Are you intelligently designed? If you answer “Yes”, I’ll say “Bull”! Is the rest of LUE intelligently designed to optimise your love and respect of your alleged Almighty Creator? If you answer “Yes” yet again, I’ll say “Bull yet again”!

Human beings are apparently the apex of all of that which God created. As such, all of that which God created should benefit or be beneficial to us. Life, the Universe and everything (LUE) has been designed by God with us in mind since LUE was created before us, in preparation for us. It (LUE) therefore must be an intelligently designed, since God is, presumably, intelligent (though creating the human species sort of makes you wonder). Now, the question is, does the rhetoric meet the reality?

Continued from yesterday’s blog…

If God created everything, God also created the various principles relating to metallurgy. Now the creation of metal objects like knives and swords and spears and guillotine blades and bullets can put holes in the human bodies that God designed, holes big enough to make that human body an extinct human body. By allowing metallurgy, well so much for God wanting His apex of creation, human beings, to live long and prosper.

If God created everything, God created all of terrestrial biology. Terrestrial biology has a habit of getting in the way of the human ideal of utopia, like a Garden of Eden. I mean there’s food poisoning, all manner of natural venoms and toxins like snake and spider bites and wasp stings and scorpions and jellyfish; predators that can snack on human prey like crocodiles, sharks, tigers, wolf/hyena packs, etc. Then there are those fatal illnesses caused by killer viruses and other microbes that do you in with the flu, AIDS, Ebola, ALS (a motor neuron disease), and a hundred more nasties. Ask your family doctor for a list of how biology can do you a mischief, but allow lots of time for what will prove to be a rather lengthy lecture. 

If God created everything, God created all of our traits and characteristics. Just one generation after God created the pinnacle of all that was and ever will be (Adam and Eve), Cain murdered Abel. Things have just snowballed from there and also incorporate rape and incest and legalised murder (warfare) and enough variations on human atrocities to fill an encyclopaedia with. Did God create for us an intelligent state of mind (which isn’t quite the same thing as an intelligent mind)? Well, our intelligent state of mind can use those intelligent physics and chemistry and even biology that God so intelligently created to raise all sorts of non-intelligent havoc. We’ve all heard of CBR – chemical, biological and radiological warfare.

IMHO, God has got to accept some responsibility here in the same way that a parent has to accept responsibility for the behaviour of their children.

Speaking of parents, parents are usually given (or figure out for themselves) safety tips on how to keep their yard, home and contents a safe place for their kids – like keeping medicines out of reach is but one example. In the case of God the Father (and Mother) it appears as if He has taken the opposite route and bobby-trapped our yard, home and contents. I suppose that’s an intelligent design of sorts if that’s your objective, but God’s intelligent design message is then “boy have I got it in for you lot” (actually that’s just a continuation of His Old Testament ways).

On the other hand, Mother Nature is neutral. So, are we being cared for by a loving God, the apex of His creative intelligence, or a neutral Mother Nature who just requires that we pay our money and take our chances? At least Mother Nature is intellectually honest. Our Supreme Being, the Almighty Creator God, who’s all loving and merciful and compassionate, on the other hand, has intelligently designed all myriad of ways to snuff you out of existence!

Now let’s consider the subject of waste. To waste resources is not considered intelligent. To design an inefficient whatever when there are more efficient options available is not considered intelligent. It’s not very intelligent or efficient to design and build a car with square wheels! That’s a waste of resources. But God tends to waste a lot of resources. For example, since we are the apex of God’s creations, I ask if we really need any more resources and real estate that is contained with the solar system itself. The rest of the vast cosmos is a waste of space and stuff. Who needs it? We don’t. And when the Sun runs low on fuel in four or five billion years time, well surely we can rely on God to change the batteries, and thus life goes on.

More down to earth, we note that God created life. Okay, over the course of its lifetime, a tree might produce billions of seeds, of which perhaps one or two might survive and thrive and make it into tree-hood. All the rest are wasted effort on the part of the parent tree. Of course you might argue that the unlucky seeds ended up as a food resource supply for various animals and thus weren’t really wasted at all. And while there’s something to be said for that, what about those billions of male sperm cells and dozens of female egg cells that never get their act together and thus never get into the act. That too is an extravagant waste of time and energy and other bodily resources that went into that wasted production. God could have designed a system whereby one sperm was produced and one egg was produced and the two would unite and live happy ever after!

There are vast deposits of valuable minerals deep down inside the Earth – fat lot of good they do us. 99.999% of the Sun’s energy output misses our planet (and the rest of the solar system’s real estate) and heads off into the depths of interstellar space. More waste.

Lastly, and on a more philosophical note, if there is intelligent design behind LUE, then that implies that there must be a purpose(s) or reason(s) behind all of those bits and pieces that collectively make up LUE. But that’s clearly nonsense. Who’s the recipient or beneficiary? It has to be something living for non-living things cannot appreciate intelligent design. A grain of sand understands no design or purpose in being tossed about by the ocean waves, presumably a part of God’s intelligent design. But then a microbe has no comprehension of the existence or purpose or significance of say the planet Mercury or the planetoid Pluto (again a part of God’s intelligent design). Ditto that of a tree. In fact ditto that right on up the ‘tree of life’ until you get to us. So apparently we are the recipient or beneficiary of God’s intelligent design – the apex of God’s creation. Okay, that makes sense, except for one tiny flaw hinted at in the beginning paragraph – The intelligently designed Universe has been around for 13.7 billion years. Intelligently designed Planet Earth has been around for 4.5 billion years. God’s apex (defined as Homo sapiens) has been around for about 200,000 years - maximum duration. Oops – that’s a lot of waste. Waste isn’t intelligent, so the whole intelligent design bit ultimately crumbles like a house made out of playing cards. . It’s almost as if we were just a minor afterthought and not the apex of God’s creative abilities after all.  

God's Intelligent Design? Part One

One alleged proof of an Almighty deity is that life, the Universe and everything (LUE) is apparently designed in an intelligent, not in a random way. Part of that life is of course human beings, like you. Are you intelligently designed? If you answer “Yes”, I’ll say “Bull”! Is the rest of LUE intelligently designed to optimise your love and respect of your alleged Almighty Creator? If you answer “Yes” yet again, I’ll say “Bull yet again”!

Human beings are apparently the apex of all of that which God created. As such, all of that which God created should benefit or be beneficial to us. Life, the Universe and everything (LUE) has been designed by God with us in mind since LUE was created before us, in preparation for us. It (LUE) therefore must be an intelligently designed, since God is, presumably, intelligent (though creating the human species sort of makes you wonder). That intelligent design includes the design of God’s apex creation itself – the human being. Now, the question is, does the rhetoric meet the reality? Let’s start with the alleged intelligent design or construction of the human being.

Do you need a hearing aid? Do you need glasses? Did you require your tonsils or appendix or wisdom teeth to be removed? Do you suffer from haemorrhoids or back problems?  Have your hips, knees, and ankles let you down? Can your bones break? Do you suffer from baldness, tooth decay, arthritis, acne, colds, the flu, even cancer? Do you have issues with your sexuality or the functioning of your private parts? Do you suffer from mental illness? Who created the human species and therefore by definition created you? God, that’s who, created you! Who created your physiology and anatomy? Did I hear you say “God”? So who created all of your psychological, physiological and anatomical problems? Did I hear you say “God” again? Is this what you would consider Intelligent Design? I don’t think so! Did God fail Anatomy 101? I think so.

As an example of so-called ‘intelligent design’ our nakedness relative to our furry primate and hominid ancestors and current primate ‘relatives’ is another clue that God failed Anatomy 101 – there are multi-dozens upon dozens of primates; only one ‘naked ape’ (humans). Why did God create us without fur? I mean when the temperature drops much below the comfort threshold, we require in no uncertain terms clothing. When it hits freezing point, we can’t survive without clothing, yet our furry animal cousins seem to manage A-OK. There’s many an image of a furry mammal surviving, even thriving in the snow. Quite apart from the fact that fur is a better regulator of temperature than just sweating (our primary temperature regulation mechanism), loss of fur resulted in two other highly negative evolutionary rock and hard place restrictions.

We’ve been given (by God) a temperature regulation mechanism via sweating. Humans of all the mammals are the species that sweat the most. The retrograde step of temperature control via sweating instead of fur imposed two additional restrictions on us. 1) We were forced to stay close to reliable sources of fresh water. 2) It also makes us way more dependent on supplies of salt since salt is excreted from the body via sweat. Salt supplies in the natural environment are rare – so rare that once upon a time salt was extremely valuable and you got paid in salt. It’s where we get our word, salary from. If only the Almighty had given us our fur.

Another screw-up by our Supreme Being has to do with our bipedal gait relative to the rest of the mammals. Can you name me one other mammal that routinely walks on two legs?  No? That’s probably because there are many negatives to a bipedal gait, like loss of stability. Humans are more prone to losing their balance and falling over than say a cow or a cat. If you’re alone and quadrupedal (or an insect or even better a spider) and lose the use of a leg, you’re hurting but not critically. If you’re alone and bipedal and lose the use of a leg, you’re up fertilizer creek. God should have given us six limbs – four legs and two arms! Now that would have been intelligent design.  

Further, as a benefit to God’s apex human species, it would have been really intelligent to cap off the aging process at say the 30 year mark. No wrinkles, no balding, no grey hairs, no liver spots, no need for a walking stick/cane, etc. Now we still have to eventually kick-the-bucket, but why have to suffer through the afflictions of old age? Be a 70-year-old in a 30-year-old body then have a sudden death heart attack that ends things on a still relatively youthful high note (as it were). I mean God created the animals that way – when’s the last time you saw an elderly grey-haired, wrinkled cat? How about a bald-headed dog? Animals don’t tend to show the aging process as obviously as us humans. Thanks God!

Quite apart from human beings, did God design an intelligently constructed universe? If God created humans, the be-all-and-end-all of His creations, then surely He would, as any parent would, design an environment that would protect us from harms way and certainly not put us in danger. Well, considering that many bits and pieces of God’s cosmic construction that could wipe out us human beings, I’d have to answer in the negative. God’s a bad parent. I mean there are gamma-ray bursts, supernovae explosions, black holes that can eat us as just a minor snack, solar flares and of course the now and again loose asteroid impact cannon that could just about make our day our last day. Who needs the Book of Revelation with all this potential cosmic end of days that’s so part and parcel of God’s Universe? 

Then you have oddballs like planets having days longer than their years and planets that rotate on their sides instead of having a rotation axis up-down. Maybe the Almighty has a warped sense of humour or likes variety!

But back to the dangers to human life and limb, how many of God’s so beloved subjects are wiped out by terrestrial, never mind extraterrestrial, “Acts of God” every year? How can I wipe ye out – let me count the ways. Floods are a given, even after Noah’s time; landslides and avalanches of course; drought and famine; wicked winds via hurricanes (cyclones or typhoons) and of course tornadoes; wildfires; tsunamis; earthquakes; volcanoes; and God’s favourite, bolts of lightning from the sky*, and a host of other natural ways and means of translating the you that is you into the late you that was you. Why does God enact “Acts of God” when God created you and loves you, and is merciful and compassionate? Something’s screwy somewhere!

Speaking of screwy, I tend to find it pretty incredible that people who survive an “Act of God” (i.e. – a natural disaster) attribute their good fortune to a miracle (as in “it’s a miracle we survived”), as in a supernatural intervention when it was just the luck of the draw. And then to top it off, they will “Thank God” for having survived. Do you “Thank God” for an “Act of God”? I think not. How about giving God the Big Finger for sending the “Act of God” your way in the first damn place! 

If God created everything, God created the laws of physics. That includes the laws that govern nuclear fission and fusion. Nuclear fusion and fission can create items that go ‘Ka-Boom’. An atomic or nuclear explosion in your neck of the woods can also ruin your day! Even a peaceful nuclear power plant meltdown can be detrimental to your health. So much for God’s design of intelligent physics! Now of course our Sun is powered by nuclear fusion, but an intelligent all-powerful God I’m sure could have created an alternative form of solar energy.

But here again maybe God’s sense of funny-bone humour comes into play. If God created physics then He created quantum physics and no doubt God is rolling on Heaven’s floor laughing his posterior off at the inability of His subjects to come to terms with the associated absurdities that He mandated regarding all things quantum. Einstein said that God does not throw dice. Einstein shouldn’t tell God what to do. God not only throws dice, He throws them where you can’t even see them.

If God created everything, God also created the laws of chemistry. That includes various mixtures which, albeit on a lesser scale, can also go ‘Ka-Boom’, like gunpowder. How many of God’s human subjects, get to join God in Heaven somewhat prematurely as a result of the use and misuse of gunpowder or dynamite or nitro-glycerine? An intelligent God might have bypassed the design and need of chemical explosives.

As an analogy, does a rational parent give their ten-year-old child a loaded gun to ‘play’ with? 

To be continued…

*Oops – sorry, I meant Zeus. I have lots of trouble telling the two apart since they both look so much alike!

God: the Intelligent Designer? Oops! [+] Intermission

One alleged proof of an Almighty is that life, the universe and everything is apparently designed in an intelligent, not in a random way. Part of that life is of course human beings, like you. Are you intelligently designed? If you answer “Yes”, I’ll say “Bull”!

Do you need a hearing aid? Do you need glasses? Did you require your tonsils or appendix or wisdom teeth to be removed? Do you suffer from haemorrhoids or back problems? Have your hips, knees, and ankles let you down? Do you suffer from baldness, tooth decay, arthritis, acne, colds, the flu, even cancer? Do you have issues with your sexuality or the functioning of your private parts? Do you suffer from mental illness? Who created the human species and therefore by definition created you? Mr. Supreme Being, that's who, created you! Who created your physiology and anatomy? Did I hear you say "the Almighty"? So who created all of your psychological, physiological and anatomical problems? Did I hear you say "the Almighty" again? Is this what you would consider Intelligent Design? I don't think so! Did the Almighty fail Anatomy 101? I think so.

As an example of so-called ‘intelligent design’ our nakedness relative to our furry primate ancestors and current primate ‘relatives’ is another clue that God failed Anatomy 101 – there are multi-dozens upon dozens of primates; only one ‘naked ape’ (humans). Why did we get created without fur? I mean when the temperature drops much below the comfort threshold, we require in no uncertain terms clothing. When it hits freezing point, we can’t survive without clothing, yet our furry animal cousins seem to manage A-OK. There’s many an image of a furry mammal surviving, even thriving in the snow. Quite apart from the fact that fur is a better regulator of temperature than just sweating, loss of fur resulted in two other highly negative evolutionary rock and hard place restrictions. We’ve been given a temperature regulation mechanism via sweating. Humans of all the mammals are the species that sweat the most. The retrograde step of temperature control via sweating instead of fur imposed two additional restrictions on us. 1) We were forced to stay close to reliable sources of fresh water. 2) It also makes us way more dependent on supplies of salt since salt is excreted from the body via sweat. Salt supplies in the natural environment are rare – so rare that once upon a time salt was extremely valuable and you got paid in salt. It’s were we get our word, salary from. If only the Almighty had given us our fur.

Another screw-up by our Supreme Being has to do with our bipedal gait relative to the rest of the mammals. Name me one other mammal that routinely walks on two legs?  That’s probably because there are many negatives to a bipedal gait, like loss of stability. Humans are more prone to losing balance and falling over than say a cow or a cat. If you’re alone and quadrupedal (or an insect or even better a spider) and lose the use of a leg, you’re hurting but not critically. If your alone and bipedal and lose the use of a leg, you’re up fertilizer creek. God should have given us six limbs – four legs and two arms! Now that would have been intelligent design.   

That’s probably enough Bible-bashing and kicking God’s privates for the moment. I’ll be back on both bashing and kicking on both an irregular as well as an irreligious basis. Meantime, see also, if so inclined, my “All Things Extraterrestrial and “All Things Natural Philosophy” blogs.

Six Impossible Godly Concepts: Part Two

We all like lists: The ten best this, the top dozen that; the five worst ranking next thing. That’s why the popularity of the Guinness Book of Records. In “Alice through the Looking Glass”, the White Queen believed in six impossible things before breakfast. Exactly what those impossible things were is not stated; perhaps they fell in the lap, not of the gods, but of God.

Continued from yesterday’s blog…

Impossibility Three: Is God All–Knowing?  Hardly! If God is all knowing, what’s the point in the whole creation business? There’s no fun or satisfaction to a creation if you know to the tiniest detail, exactly what will happen at each and every moment to everything, everyone, and everywhere. Would your life be worth living if at say age 10, you had absolute knowledge of the future and knew exactly what each and every future second would be like for you in advance? So God created Adam and Eve, but since God is alleged to be an all-knowing God, then He knew even then what would happen in the Garden of Eden, so why bother instructing Adam and Eve not to eat forbidden fruit? What would be the point? That’s why people don’t usually want to be told the resolution to a film they haven’t yet seen. If you’re told before-the-fact whodunit, why see the film or read the novel?

That applies equally to that final Biblical Book of Revelation. The Bible is God’s Holy Word. Revelation is therefore God’s Holy Word. Everything that is to come is spelt out in detail. The ending is not in doubt. How the ending is achieved is not in doubt. God knows all of this in advance. Satan, being a literate sort of entity, knows all of this as well. Therefore, what’s the point in enacting out the scenario? If everyone has to go through the fixed Revelation scenario, then that confirms everything is predestined and that there is no such thing as Free Will despite God’s utterances to the contrary. Just like in a novel or a film, the plot plays out the exact same each and every time. The characters have no choice but to follow the plot line – they have no Free Will.

Impossibility Four: Is God All-Powerful? Hardly! If God can not prevent evil, then God is not all powerful. If God can prevent evil, but chooses not to, then God is hardly benevolent (see Impossibility Two above). If God allows evil to exist in humans, and God created humans, then God must share some responsibility for that evil. It’s akin to parents having to shoulder responsibility if their child or children runs amuck.

God is not all-powerful since not even God can get around the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle in quantum physics, which states that it is impossible to know simultaneously any particle’s precise position and trajectory.

Presumably, God, like gravity, and anything comprised of mass and/or energy can’t operate at faster than light speed. If God wants to smite you down, and God is ten light-years away, then you’re safe for a decade before His bolt of lightning hits you.

If God exists in a physical location within the Universe, then God can’t know about an event until the light (or other parts of the electromagnetic spectrum; or gravity) from that event reaches God. Since light has a finite speed, God is in the ‘dark’ as it were until the light and information it contains reaches God. For example, if God is residing on Planet Earth, and for some reason our Sun goes supernova, God (as well as the rest of humanity) won’t know about it for other eight-plus minutes – the time it takes light to reach Earth from the Sun.

Not even God can change the past. I mean, there are any number of instances where to correct some mistake; it would have been easier to backtrack in time and undo something, like going back in time and posting a “No Trespassing: Keep Out: Serpents Will Be Shot On Sight: This Means You” sign at the entrance to the Garden of Eden.

Not even God can accomplish something that is self-contradictory, like creating a spherical cube or a cubical sphere! Not even God can draw more than one straight line between two points on a flat piece of paper.

If God is all-powerful, why did God need to rest on the 7^th day?

Impossibility Five: Is God A God for All People? If you believe the Bible, God has His Chosen People – the Hebrews. God has His Promised Land for His Chosen People. That Promised Land isn’t America (far less California) or Australia/New Zealand or Europe (with or without Great Britain) or Antarctica or Asia or Africa or Russia, etc. Those Chosen Peoples aren’t the Italians, the Japanese, the Koreans, the Aboriginals, the Amerindians, the Polynesians or the Turks, and especially not the Egyptians! The Promised Land is the Land of Canaan, now called Israel; The Chosen People are, obviously, the Israelites. In fact the Bible (King James Version) makes crystal clear, not once, but 201 times that God is the “God of Israel”. So, if you ain’t associated with God’s Chosen People and God’s Promised Land, it’s impossible to believe that you are one of those in God’s holy grace! In short, it’s safe to give God your Big Middle Finger, even both of them! 

Impossibility Six: God versus Intelligent Design? Do you need a hearing aid? Do you need glasses? Did you require your tonsils or appendix or wisdom teeth to be removed? Do you suffer from haemorrhoids or back problems?  Have your hips, knees, and ankles let you down? Do you suffer from baldness, tooth decay, arthritis, acne, colds, the flu, even cancer? Do you have issues with your sexuality or the functioning of your private parts? Do you suffer from mental illness? Who created the human species and therefore by definition created you? God, that’s who, created you! Who created your physiology and anatomy? Did I hear you say “God”? So who created all of your psychological, physiological and anatomical problems? Did I hear you say “God” again? Is this what you would consider Intelligent Design? I don’t think so! Did God fail Anatomy 101? I think so.

God does in fact have one ‘All’ quality. He’s an all-nothing. God, the supernatural deity, doesn’t exist. One line of evidence in support of that is that God hasn’t struck me down dead by lightning by writing and posting this! So you see, blasphemy is a victimless ‘crime’. And no, I don’t hate God. You can’t hate something that doesn’t exist.